


Separation

by Kannika



Category: Uglies Series - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 09:11:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11181597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kannika/pseuds/Kannika
Summary: “Do you feel special now?” Cable whispered.Tally’s eyes flickered. She was a dichotomy. She was so young but she had been made so ancient. She was the perfect human and yet she was so alien and animal she couldn’t look like anything but a predator. She made the world but she had no place in it.“I feel alive.” She said. “But you’re the one who killed me, so.”





	Separation

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble I started a LONG time ago and decided to finish. Introspection is so much fun to write, and Tally has been one of my favorite characters for years. I just think Dr. Cable's mind would be interesting, because she so completely believed what she did was necessary, even if she ruined a lot of lives in the process.

Cable’s cell echoed at night.

It wasn’t that it was large- the opposite, actually. It was tiny, one cot and one toilet in the corner and enough space between them for about five paces. One wall was bars, which meant no privacy. There was a camera in the corner that was always pointed at her so they could be sure she wasn’t still ‘doing immoral deeds’ or whatever else they had said when they convicted her. She didn’t mind. Even as a normal, boring human, she was still beautiful, just like everyone else. There was no shame if you knew that. And she had nothing to hide from them anyway. Her purpose had been accomplished.

It was the emptiness. She had no guard except for one hour in the mornings, and no other inmates on the same floor, and no visitors. (She hadn’t known for years if her family was alive and there had been no sign of them coming forward since her sentence was handed out.) No sound reached her from the outside and she made very little noise herself. 

So when the outside door opened, it shot her awake with a start. 

Something was happening. She had been down here for months now and nothing had happened, what was happening now? She glanced at the camera pointed at her cell, and its beady eye was, for the first time, not flickering with the red light that meant it was recording her. This wasn’t an authorized visit, then. But they had precious little time before someone came to check on her and fix it, whoever this mysterious visitor was.

They opened the inside door and slipped soundlessly inside, footfalls so light she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t looking at a ghost, and turned to look at her. It was a woman she didn’t recognize. Someone she had wronged, most likely, from the way her eyes glittered in the low light and fixed upon her with an animal’s focus. 

Maybe ‘who are you’ would have been most appropriate, but that sounded weak, and she still had her pride. “What are you doing here?” She said instead.

The woman tilted her head up, surveying her; the corner of her mouth twitched into a joyless smile. “Just wanted to see how the infamous Dr. Cable is doing in the psycho ward.” She said quietly.

There were razors in the voice; it sent chills sweeping down her spine. She knew that voice. Would know it for the rest of her life.

“Tally Youngblood.” She breathed.

In an instant, the smart plastic crumbled into dust and into a familiar face. The flash tattoos above her eye spun so fast they seemed solid against her tanned skin, and she eyed her with a hatred that, in spite of the bars between them, put fear in her heart for the first time in months. That was what the programming did. Made them worthy of respect, and yes, of fear. 

It was the first time she had faced one of her creations in months. She had forgotten how well she had done her job. 

“You shouldn’t be here.” Cable said, getting to her feet and going toward the bars before she was aware of doing it, and glanced around for the inevitable guards. “If they catch you-

“Don’t jump to any conclusions. You deserve to be exactly where you are.”

“I know you’re not here to rescue me, little moron,” Cable snapped, and Tally bared her teeth, “But I sprang you out of the operating room so you would run. If they find you, hero or not, they’ll change you. They did it to all of us.”

“There’s more smart plastic where this came from.” Tally cocked her head, a predatory movement, showing her sharp teeth once more. In spite of herself, Cable shuddered. She had designed her Specials to be the stuff of nightmares, and Tally was in a class all her own, when there was intelligence and daring in the eyes instead of a filled-in blank slate. “And don’t say ‘us’. You’re not like me. I’m not like you.”

_No one’s like you._ She almost said it, but stopped herself at the last second. That wasn’t a good thing in Tally’s eyes, she had to remind herself, and she wanted to live. Tally could tear her throat out with her teeth.

And yet, if she wanted to, she already would have. And this would be the one and only time they could level with each other. Tally wouldn’t be coming back. 

“If I was like you,” Cable said, keeping her head up instead of giving any inclination of bowing, “I wouldn’t be here.”

Tally crossed her arms. The scars on her arms stood out in a way that made them glow in the dark. Tally could have gotten them fixed, she could have worn long sleeves, but she didn’t. That was one of the reasons Cable had chosen her in the first place. She had been made of tougher stuff even than the rest of the Specials, even than the rest of the Cutters, and she was proud of it.

Cable had seen it, and recognized it, but she thought she could tame it and that had been a mistake. The only mistake she had to make. Tally Youngblood refused to bow to anyone, even her creator.

“You’re a coward, you know.” Tally said now, quietly. “If you wanted to make monsters, you should have turned yourself into one.”

Cable surveyed her. It was so impossible to tell what she was thinking. “If that’s an attempt to make me feel guilty, it doesn’t work.”

“Then you’re not human at all.” Tally snapped. “Do you even care how many people you killed? How many lives you ruined?”

“I _saved_ people!” Cable spat, rising up and toward her even though it felt as insurmountable as standing up to a hurricane, she _would not_ be made to feel ashamed of her life’s work. “I saved _millions,_ I was going to save the _world!”_

Instead of getting angry like she expected, Tally gave her a feral, satisfied smile. “There was a term for that in one of the magazines.” She said. “It’s called playing God. It doesn’t end well.”

Cabel shook her head. She was wrong to expect her to understand. Tally hadn’t seen all the pieces moving; she was a piece. She hadn’t seen all the need, and seen the opportunity, and made it work.

She hadn’t said anything, but Tally shifted and turned back around. “I'm done humoring you." She said. “Nice to know you’re as arrogant as ever. I won’t be seeing you again.”

It was so surreal, to hear her saying goodbye, to see her last and finest creation leaving, that Cable laughed. 

There was one more thing she needed to say.

“You’re the perfect human being.” She said. “Perfectly beautiful, just like you wanted. Perfectly smart. Perfectly deadly. And perfectly unique. Everything you could ever want. I gave it all to you.” 

Tally paused. There was such grace, even in that one simple movement. Such perfection. She had done a good job. Tally was a work of art- _her_ work of art.

Beauty is pain, one of the magazines had said. It was a fitting saying. Tally was beautiful and all she knew how to do was destroy. It wasn’t even surprising she had turned on her creator- it was literally all she could have done. It was what she was made for. 

“Do you feel special now?” She breathed.

Tally’s eyes flickered. She was a dichotomy. She was so young but she had been made so ancient. She was the perfect human and yet she was so alien and animal she couldn’t look like anything but a predator. She made the world but she had no place in it.

“I feel alive.” She said. “But you’re the one who killed me, so.”

How could she say that? She was so alive, so… _perfect._ She was full of so much life and energy and purpose it was a tangible thing in the air. Where Tally breathed, the rest of the shallow, pretty, soft world trembled. 

Cable said, refusing to phrase it as a question, “I _gave_ you life.”

When Tally didn’t answer, she took another step closer. The closer she got, the sharper the edges of her face, the rip to her nails, the stark lines of the tattoos that spun and pulsed. She was a predator and the whole world was her prey. How was she not grateful? She would give anything to have that power again. To walk like a queen above the rest of the mortal plane. “You’re perfect.” She said. “You’re the greatest thing I ever made. That’s why I freed you-”

_“Freed me?”_

In a split second Tally was pressed against the bars, teeth bared, eyes flashing, and Cable scrambled backwards so fast she lost her footing. She didn’t fall gracefully anymore, and it was loud in the dark and silence, but nobody came running. Nobody to lock up the freak who saved the world. Nobody to save the normal woman who had created her and was going to stay here forever and suffer for it. 

Tally was grinning, now, and it had bite to it. A wry humor. “You think this is free? Skulking around with masks on because everyone who finds me still wants to use me? Running around outside of the cities because everyone in it is terrified of me? Feeling like I could combust and turn everything around me into a graveyard-“

She stopped. Cable knew the last word, though: _again._

She was the only one who knew all of Tally’s sins, she realized, the only person she still considered a threat. And instead of making her feel like she had some semblance of control over her anymore, instead of giving her a place and a steady footing… she was just aware that animals ripped the throats out of their enemies, no subtlety, no politics, and she had made an animal that surpassed every other. 

She put a hand to her throat in reflex. Tally’s eyes followed the movement, and there was definitely want there. Her creation was going to kill her. Fitting. Poetic justice. Nobody was going to even go after her for it, if anyone cared enough to look into tonight. Did they even?

But Tally didn’t try to open the door and end her. Just stared. That was the thing about power: it made you subtle, sometimes, so that when you weren’t tearing things apart even your stillness held strength. This, the knowing that she could kill Cable if she wanted and she was afraid of it- that was enough of a win to make this visit worth it. Maybe that was what she wanted. 

She was never going to know, she realized now. Tally had evolved beyond her comprehension, beyond what she was made into. She was something the likes of which the world had never seen and would never see again, and she was Cable’s but only in name. 

Only in the glorious past that was gone now. And her with it soon. 

Tally took a deep breath, coming to some imitation of peace, and when she opened her eyes again they were narrow and blinding in their intensity.

“You gave me scars and a reputation.” Tally said. “This isn’t beauty, and it isn’t life. And I’m not yours.”

And she disappeared into the shadows. 

Cable may as well have dreamed her up.


End file.
